Reversing Correct Verdicts Goes Against the Will of the People

UNDER the leadership of the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao, a great struggle to beat back the Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts is triumphantly developing throughout the country. Our great leader Chairman Mao recently pointed out: "Reversing correct verdicts goes against the will of the people." Chairman Mao's words have fully expressed the strong desire of the revolutionary people to combat restoration and retrogression and to persevere in continuing the revolution and exposed the reactionary nature of the unrepentant capitalist-roader in the Party who goes against the trend of history. They are an inspiration to the whole Party, the whole army and the people of the whole country to take a still more active part in the struggle against the Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts. This struggle was provoked by the bourgeoisie. The Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts was stirred up around last summer. Those doing this opposed taking class struggle as the key link, tampered with the Party's basic line, negated the proletarian revolution in education and in literature and art and the socialist revolution in the field of science and technology; they negated the three-in-one combination of the old, the middle-aged and the young, the new socialist things on various fronts and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and they tried to reverse the correct appraisal of the Cultural Revolution and settle accounts with it. They had theory and a programme to guide their organized activities in reversing correct verdicts. They directed their spearhead at our great leader Chairman Mao, at his revolutionary line and at the masses of revolutionary people. If this Right deviationist wind is not rebuffed and beaten back, would it not be tantamount to tolerating the spread of revisionism unchecked and the restoration of capitalism? The mass revolutionary debate that started in Tsinghua University has dealt this Right deviationist wind a head-on blow; this has won the hearts of the people as well as enthusiastic support and acclaim from the people of all nationalities in the country. The revolutionary masses and revolutionary cadres have earnestly studied the experience of Tsinghua University and, under the leadership of the Party, criticized "taking the three directives as the key link," thereby completely isolating the capitalist-roaders in the Party who stirred up the Right deviationist wind. Facts prove that the workers, peasants and soldiers, revolutionary cadres and revolutionary intellectuals, that is, the people who account for over 95 per cent of the total population, want revolution and support socialism. They do not want to be oppressed by bigwigs who practise revisionism. Their basic desire is to take the socialist road, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution represents their fundamental interests. They want to consolidate and expand the fruits of victory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, restrict bourgeois right and advance the socialist revolution. To practise revisionism and reverse the correct appraisal of the Great Cultural Revolution will never be approved by the masses of the people. Chairman Mao recently pointed out: "With the socialist revolution they themselves come under lire. At the time of the co-operative transformation of agriculture there were people in the Party who opposed it, and when it comes to criticizing bourgeois right, they repent it. You are making the socialist revolution, and yet don't knew where the bourgeoisie is. It is right in the Communist Party — those in power taking the capitalist road. The capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road." This incisive Marxist-Leninist analysis by Chairman Mao has summed up the historical experience of China's socialist revolution over the past 20 years and more, and it has defended and developed Marxism-Leninism. It is a powerful ideological weapon for us m combating and preventing revisionism, a powerful ideological weapon for us in continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Chairman Mao clearly indicates here that the capitalist-roaders are precisely the bourgeoisie in the Party during the period of socialist revolution. From the co-operative movement to the criticism of bourgeois right, every step forward in the socialist revolution has met with resistance from the bourgeoisie in the Party. Since in socialist society, there are still classes, class contradictions and class struggle and there still are the soil and the conditions engendering capitalism and the bourgeoisie, capitalist-roaders or new representatives of the bourgeoisie will inevitably appear in the Party, and the phenomenon that "the capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road" will continue to exist for a long time. The person who stirred up the Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts is precisely the capitalist-roader who followed Liu Shao-chi in practising revisionism and opposed all the socialist revolutionary movements before the Cultural Revolution and who was criticized in the Cultural Revolution but has refused to mend his ways. In words, he stated "I'll never reverse the verdict," but once he took up work again, he relapsed into error and continued to take the capitalist road. Persons like him have never been Marxists but are bourgeois democrats with their ideology, as Chairman Mao pointed out, remaining at the stage of the democratic revolution. Like Sung Chiang in the novel Water Margin who, though having joined the ranks of the peasant insurgents, still represents the landlord class, the capitalist-roaders are "Communists" in name but actually representatives of the old and new bourgeoisie within and outside the Party. We must bear in mind that throughout the historical period of socialism, the principal contradiction is the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the main danger is revisionism, and the target of the revolution is the bourgeoisie, mainly those in power in the Party taking the capitalist road. The struggle initiated and led by Chairman Mao to beat back the Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts concerns the future and destiny of our Party and state? After every great historical social change, there inevitably are persons like Confucius who came out and tried to turn things back and restore the old order. Such persons are bound to appear in great revolutions such as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The current struggle between reversing correct verdicts and opposing the reversal, between restoring the old order and combating restoration, is a continuation and deepening of the struggle between Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line and the counter-revolutionary revisionist line of Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao, and a continuation and deepening of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Such struggles will go on in the future, and we must be sober-minded about this. The struggle against the Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts is being carried out under the leadership of the Party committees at various levels. Do not establish ties and do not organize fighting groups. It is essential to conscientiously study the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, study Chairman Mao's theses on classes, class contradictions and class struggle since the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and his important instructions on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and on the counter-attack on the Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts, and get a clear understanding of the character, target, tasks and prospects of the socialist revolution. Leading cadres should stand in the van of the movement and take the lead in study, exposure and criticism and in the counter-attack against the Right deviationist wind. It is necessary to have faith, in the masses, rely on the masses and boldly arouse the masses, and firmly grasp the main orientation of struggle; unite, and focus the criticism on the revisionist line of that capitalist-roader who refuses to mend his ways. The revolutionary masses and revolutionary cadres must bear in mind Chairman Mao's teachings "help more people by educating them and narrow the target of attack" and "learn from past mistakes to avoid future ones and cure the sickness to save the patient." With regard to the small number of leading cadres who have carried out the erroneous line, it is essential to help them change their class stand and encourage them to correct their mistakes. We should adhere to the principle "grasp revolution, promote production and other work and preparedness against war," do a better job in all work including industrial and agricultural production, be vigilant against class enemies trying to make trouble and against those trying to sabotage production to undermine revolution. It is necessary to continue, through the struggle to beat back the Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts, to promote stability and unity and consolidate and develop the great achievements of the Great Cultural Revolution and the movement to criticize Lin Piao and Confucius. Under the leadership of the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao, let us take class struggle as the key link and carry the struggle against the Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts through to the end!